Malkia A. Cyril

Malkia A. Cyril is founder and Executive Director of the Center for Media Justice (CMJ) and co-founder of the Media Action Grassroots Network, a national network of community-based organizations working to ensure racial and economic justice in a digital age. Cyril is one of few leaders of color in the movement for digital rights and freedom. As a leader in the Black Lives Matter Network, they help to bring important technical safeguards and surveillance countermeasures to those across the country working to reform systemic racism and violence in law enforcement. Cyril is also a prolific writer and public speaker on issues ranging from net neutrality to the communication rights of prisoners. Their writing and comments have appeared in the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, TIME, Politico, the Huffington Post, Mic.com, Essence Magazine, and dozens more, including four documentary films including The 13th by Ava DuVernay. Cyril is a Prime Movers fellow and winner of the Electronic Frontier 2016 Pioneers Award, the 2015 Hugh Hefner 1st Amendment Award for framing net neutrality as a civil rights issue, and the 2012 Donald H. McGannon Award for work to advance the roles of women and people of color in the media reform movement.

Over the past two months, millions of people have taken to the streets to challenge our nation’s authoritarian new president.

From the women’s marches that took place across the country and around the world to the mass protests against the Muslim ban and immigration raids, people are resisting the neo-fascist agenda President Trump is unleashing on our nation.

A primary reason why millions have been able to mobilize so quickly is because they have the ability to use the open internet to communicate to the masses and organize a resistance.

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"The coalition has gathered 570,000 signatures urging Facebook to acknowledge discriminatory censorship exists on its platform, that it harbors white supremacist pages even though it says it forbids hate speech in all forms, and that black and Muslim communities are especially in danger because the hate ­directed against them translates into violence in the streets, said Malkia Cyril, a Black Lives Matter activist in Oakland, Calif., who was part of a group that first met with Facebook about their concerns in 2014."

"The diverse mix of organizations and companies coming together to plan a large internet-wide protest was a perfect example of “democracy in action,” Malkia Cyril, the executive director and founder of the Center for Media Justicesays.

"Facebook’s “noncommittal” response to the groups’ request last year prompted them to ask to meet with company representatives, but the company did not respond, said Malkia Cyril, executive director of the Center for Media Justice, in an email to SiliconBeat Thursday. Similarly, Facebook did not respond to a petition urging it to change its censorship policies, he said.

“Now we know why,” Cyril said. “Racial discrimination is built into the structure of how they manage content, and it harms communities of color using the platform. It’s time for a change.”"

"When you pass a law, you create legality where there wasn’t,” says Malkia Cyril of the Center for Media Justice, a Bay Area nonprofit. “We create the legal framework where they can be legally abused.”

Cyril is opposed to police body cameras, and is skeptical that use policies, such as those arbitrated through CCOPS legislation, will be enough to rein in the abuse of surveillance in over-policed communities.

“Whether or not you have a use policy, does not mean there’s a way to enforce a use policy,” Cyril says."

""This court decision is a disaster for families of incarcerated people, a large percentage of whom are low-income and people of color," Malkia Cyril, co-founder and executive director of the Center for Media Justice, a nonprofit digital rights group, told Motherboard.

For 15 years there's been a heated battle over your right to privacy online -- from the Patriot Act to the Snowden revelations to the recent repeal of Internet privacy protections. What can we expect in the Trump Era? What's at stake? Who's at risk? And, most of all, what can you do to protect yourself and defend democracy in a digital world?

This week on CounterSpin: FCC chair Ajit Pai has announced his plans to gut net neutrality; the former Verizon lawyer and Jeff Sessions staffer declared his intentions at a private event in DC. So the victory activists fought for—having broadband recognized as a public utility like the telephone, and not some sort of corporate gift—is in jeopardy. What does this mean for all of us who rely on an open internet, and in particular for communities of color, for whom the web’s relatively even playing field is crucial for communication and organizing?